THE EMBROIDERED HANDKERCHIEF.
Maurice lost no time, the next morning, in seeking out the crafty old
Jew. Henriques was a vender of jewels that came into his hands through
private sources. There was considerable risk in his traffic; for it was
just possible some of the precious stones transferred to him might have
been acquired in a manner not strictly legal. Perhaps it was not part of
his policy to acquaint himself with the history of gems which he bought
at a bargain and reaped an enormous profit in selling; for, when Maurice
endeavored to extract some information concerning the diamonds purchased
by the Marquis de Fleury, the Jew protested entire ignorance in regard
to their prior ownership; stating that they were brought to him by one
of his _confréres_, of whom he asked no questions,--that he had
purchased them at a ruinous price, and resold them to the marquis
without a centime's benefit: a very generous proceeding on his part, he
asserted; adding, with a ludicrous assumption of importance, that he
highly esteemed the marquis, and now and then allowed himself the
gratification of favoring him in business transactions.
"But the name of the person from whom your friend received the jewels is
certainly on his books, and, however numerous the hands through which
they may have passed, they can be traced back to their original owner,"
observed Maurice.
"Not so easily, monsieur, not so easily. Purchaser has nothing to do
with original owner. Jewels worth something, or jewels worth
nothing,--that's the point; names of parties holding the articles of no
consequence."
"But you certainly inquire from what source the jewels offered you
proceed?"
"Never make impertinent inquiries,--never: would drive away customers.
If monsieur has any jewels for sale, shall be happy to look at them;
disposed to deal in the most liberal manner with monsieur."
"Thank you. My object is simply to discover a friend to whom the jewels
you sold to the Marquis de Fleury once belonged. It is indispensable
that I should learn through whose hands they came into your possession."
"Ah!" said the cunning Jew, placing his skinny finger on one side of his
hooked nose, as if reflecting; then glancing at Maurice out of the
corners of his searching eyes, he asked, "Party would like to be
discovered?--or would said party prefer to remain under the rose?"
"Possibly the latter."
"Just so; that gives interest to the enterprise. But when party objects
to being traced, difficulties spring up; takes time to overcome them;
always a certain cost."
"If you mean that I shall offer you compensation for your trouble, I am
ready to make any in my power: name your price."
"Price? price? not to be named so hastily; depends upon time consumed,
amount of labor, obstacles party concerned may throw in the way. Other
parties will have to be employed to seek out party who presented himself
with the jewels; enumeration requisite to induce communicativeness; may
turn out party had the jewels from another party, who obtained them from
another; shall have to track each party's steps backward to party who
was the original possessor."
"Take your own course. I am unskilled in these affairs," answered
Maurice, frankly; "all I ask is that you learn for me _where_ the lady
whose family jewels passed through your hands now resides. Name the cost
of your undertaking."
The wily Jew fastened his keen, speculative eyes upon his anticipated
prey, as he replied, slowly, "Cost?--can't say to a certainty; thousand
francs do to begin."
He heard the faint sigh, of which Maurice was himself unconscious, and
drew a correct inference.
From the hour that the viscount had been made aware of the true state of
Count Tristan's finances, he had reduced all his own expenses, allowed
himself no luxuries, no indulgencies, nothing but the barest
necessities, that his father's narrow resources might not be drained
through a son's lavishness. The young nobleman had not at that moment a
hundred francs at his own command. He had no alternative but to apply to
Count Tristan for the sum required by the Jew.
"My means are very limited," returned Maurice, with a great waste of
candor. "I must beg you to deal with me as liberally as possible. The
amount you demand I hope to obtain and bring you in a few days. In the
meantime you will commence your inquiries."
"Assuredly,--just so; commence putting matters in train at once;
possibly may have some clew between thumb and finger when monsieur
returns with the money; nothing to be done without golden keys: unlock
all doors; carry one into hidden depths of the earth. Shall be obliged
to advance funds to pay parties employed. Have the goodness to write
your name in this book."
Maurice wrote down his name and address, and took his leave, once more
elated by the belief that he was on the eve of discovering Madeleine's
retreat.
The letter to his father written and dispatched, he sought Bertha, and
gave her full particulars of his interview with the Jew, delicately
forbearing to mention the compensation he expected.
Bertha, as sanguine of success as her cousin, was gayly discussing
probabilities, when the Marquis de Merrivale entered.
"Young heads laid together to plot mischief, I wager!" remarked the
nobleman, jocosely; for he was in a capital humor, having just partaken
of an epicurean _dejeuner à la fourchette_ at the celebrated "Madrid's."
"We are talking about our Cousin Madeleine. Maurice has a new plan for
prosecuting his search," said Bertha. "Ah, dear Madeleine! Why did she
forsake us so strangely? How could she have had the heart to cause us so
much sorrow?"
"My dear child, it was probably her _liver_ not her _heart_ that was in
fault. Her heart, I dare say, performed its grave duties properly, and
should not be aspersed; some bilious derangement was no doubt at the
bottom of her singular conduct. The greatest eccentricities may all be
traced back to _bile_ as their origin. Regulate the bile and you
regulate the brain from which mental vagaries proceed. If some judicious
friend had administered to your cousin Madeleine a little salutary
medicine, and forced her to diet for a few days, she would have acted
more reasonably. Talking of diet, that was a princely dinner the Marquis
de Fleury set before us. He is really a very able and estimable member
of society,--understands good living to perfection. I cordially
reciprocate his wish that a lasting bond of union should exist between
us. His brother-in-law, the young Duke de Montauban, is enchanted with
my little niece. I say nothing: arrange between yourselves; but, by all
means, marry into a family which knows how to value a good cook; take a
young man who has had his taste sufficiently cultivated to distinguish
of what ingredients a sauce is composed. Don't despise a blessing that
may be enjoyed three hundred and sixty-five times every year,--that's
my advice."
Bertha had not attached any importance to the attentions of the young
duke; but her manner of receiving this suggestion,--the
"half disdain
Perched on the pouted blossom of her lip,"--
convinced Maurice that, if she favored any suitor, her inclinations did
not turn towards the duke.
"The Duke de Montauban is not ill-looking," Maurice remarked, to decoy
her into some more open expression; "and he is sufficiently
agreeable,--do you not think so?"
"I never thought about him," she replied, somewhat petulantly. "If I
chance to look at him I never think of any one but his tailor and his
hairdresser, without whom I verily believe he would have no tangible
existence."
"An accomplished tailor and a skilful _coiffure_ are all very well in
their way," observed her uncle; "but a scientific _cook_ is the grand
necessity of a man's life,--a daily need,--the trebly repeated need of
each day; and the education of a cook should commence in the cradle. If
this point received the attention which it deserves from sanitarians,
there would be fewer digestive organs out of order, and consequently
fewer police reports, and a vast diminution of eccentric degradation,
and moping madness and suicide, and horrors in general."
Bertha and Maurice did not dispute this sweeping assertion; for they
knew it would entail upon them the necessity of encountering a battalion
of arguments, which the marquis delighted to call into action to defend
the ground upon which he took up his favorite position.
Count Tristan's reply to Maurice, enclosing a check for the thousand
francs, was received a few days later. Maurice returned to the Jew with
the money. The latter rejoiced him by vaguely hinting that there was a
prospect of successful operation; but the matter would occupy time. The
viscount would be good enough to call again in a week.
Maurice was too unsuspicious and too unskilled in transactions of this
nature to doubt that the Jew was dealing with him in good faith. Instead
of a week, he returned the next morning, and repeated his visits
regularly every day. The Jew diligently fanned his hopes, assuring him
that old Henriques was not to be baffled, though the parties through
whose hands the jewels had passed were almost unapproachable. Very soon
the merciless Israelite notified the young nobleman that further funds
would be requisite, and Maurice writhed under the cruel compulsion which
forced him to make a second application to his father.
Bertha had been a fortnight in Paris when the anniversary of her
birthday, which for the first time had been forgotten, was in a singular
manner recalled to her mind. A small package had been received for her
at her uncle's residence in Bordeaux, and had been promptly forwarded to
Paris. The outer cover was directed in the handwriting of her uncle's
_concierge_; on the inner, a request, that if Mademoiselle de Merrivale
were absent the parcel might be immediately forwarded to her, was
written in familiar characters. Bertha had no sooner caught sight of
them than she cried out,--
"Madeleine! It is the handwriting of Madeleine!"
She tore open the paper with trembling hands. There was no note,--not a
single written word,--but before her lay a handkerchief of the finest
texture, and embroidered with the marvellous skill which belonged alone
to those "fairy fingers" she had so often watched.
Vainly might we attempt to convey even a faint idea of her tumultuous
rapture,--of the tears of ecstasy, the hysterical laughter, the dancing
delight, with which she greeted her uncle and Maurice, who entered a few
moments after the package was received. She kissed the handkerchief
moistened with her tears, waved it exultingly over her head, kissed it
again, and wept over it again, while the marquis and her cousin stood
looking at her in speechless astonishment.
"Madeleine! Madeleine! it is from Madeleine!" at last she found voice to
ejaculate. "See, that is her handwriting," pointing to the paper cover;
"and this is her work; her 'fairy fingers' send me a token on my
birthday. I am seventeen to-day, and no one has remembered it but
Madeleine. She thinks of me still; she never forgets any one; she has
not forgotten me!"
Maurice caught up the paper in which the handkerchief had been
enveloped, and with throbbing pulses eagerly examined the handwriting.
"See, Maurice," Bertha continued, joyfully, "in the corner she has
embroidered my name, surrounded by a wreath of forget-me-nots,--for
_she_ does not forget. The crest of the de Merrivales is in the opposite
corner; and this,--why this looks like the bracelet I gave her on her
last birthday. How wonderfully she has imitated the knot of pearls that
fastened the golden band! And this corner, Maurice, look,--this is in
remembrance of you,--of your birthday token to her. Do you not see the
design is a brooch, and the device a dove carrying an olive-branch in
its mouth, and the word 'Pax' embroidered beneath?"
Maurice looked, struggling to repress the emotion that almost unmanned
him. Pointing to the stamp upon the envelope which had contained the
handkerchief, he said,--
"It is postmarked Dresden."
"Dresden? Dresden? Can Madeleine be in Dresden?" returned Bertha. "Ah,
uncle, can we not go there at once? We shall certainly find her.
Yes,--we must go. I am tired of Paris,--let us start to-morrow."
"Dresden, my dear!" cried her uncle, in a tone of unmitigated disgust.
"Why, the barbarians would feed us upon _sour kraut_, and give us
pudding before meat! Go to Dresden? Impossible! Not to be thought of!
Paris was a wise move,--we have enjoyed the living amazingly; but trust
ourselves to those tasteless German cooks? We should be poisoned in a
couple of days. Keep cool, my dear, or you will make yourself ill by
getting into such a violent state of excitement just after breakfast.
How do you suppose the important process of digestion can progress
favorably if your blood is agitated in this turbulent manner?"
Bertha was about to answer almost wrathfully, but Maurice interrupted
her.
"_I_ will go, Bertha. Madeleine must be in Dresden. At last she has sent
us a token of her existence, a token of remembrance, thank Heaven!"
"Go! go! go at once!" was Bertha's energetic injunction.
Maurice pressed her hand tightly, and bowing to the marquis, without
attempting to utter another syllable, took his leave, carrying with him
the envelope which bore Madeleine's handwriting.
After having his passport _viséd_, he returned to his apartment to make
rapid preparations for starting that evening. Very soon Gaston de Bois
entered, evidently in a state of ill-concealed perturbation.
"Mademoiselle Bertha tells me you are going to Dresden."
"Yes, to seek my cousin. Look at the post-stamp upon that envelope.
Madeleine is in Dresden."
"How can you be sure of that?" asked Gaston.
"She writes from Dresden; can anything be clearer?" returned Maurice,
confidently.
"It is not clear to me that she is there. I wish I could persuade you
against taking this jour--our--ourney."
"That is out of the question, Gaston; so spare yourself the trouble of
the attempt."
"But the journey will be use--use--useless," persisted M. de Bois.
"How can you know that?" inquired Maurice, quickly.
"I think so; it is my impression, my conviction."
"It is not mine, and nothing can prevent my making the experiment,"
answered Maurice, decidedly.
Gaston looked as thoroughly vexed as though he were responsible for the
rash actions of his friend; but he knew that Maurice was inflexible
where Madeleine was concerned, and that all entreaties would be thrown
away unless he could sustain them by some potent reason; and _that_ it
was not in his power to proffer. He made no further opposition, but
remained fidgeting about the room in the most distracting manner,
hindering the preparations of Maurice, stumbling over articles scattered
on the floor, now and then stammering out a broken, unintelligible
phrase, and altogether seeming wretchedly uncomfortable, yet unwilling
to leave until he saw the obstinate traveller in the _fiacre_ which
drove him to the railway station.